PSoTD

I've had this article bookmarked for a few weeks and I'm not sure what to do with it. It's an opinion piece about what makes men fall in love, and in general I hate these kinds of opinion pieces, because it's one person's opinion and the subject is wide open to probably as many interpretations as there are people.

On the other hand, I found myself agreeing with some of the highlights. When I hear my friends grumble about their wives (which fortunately isn't very often) it's usually about "guy time" or "guidance issues". (btw, "wife grumbling" isn't a very useful or enjoyable practice, for anyone considering it as a hobby) In our household, sometimes we have disagreement with this as well. So, like all opinion pieces, there are kernels of truth in it, but the kernels likely vary from person to person.

Our six year old is playing T-ball this year, and so we went Sunday to buy him his first real baseball glove. We found a reasonably priced one. He's a lefty, so he couldn't use his sister's old glove. We also bought a T and a T-ball bat because he wanted to practice hitting. I can tell he's getting into the idea of playing T-ball.

On the way home, I told him we'd now have to "break in" his glove. To that end, I told him about tying it with twine and sleeping with it under his pillow.

"I'm supposed to sleep on it?"

"Yes," I said.

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of!"

I had to laugh. I explained to him that I did it with my new gloves, and his sister had done that, and even if it didn't do any good, it was tradition.

Last night, he proudly showed me it under his pillow. Good boy.

Heard last night. Big sister to little brother:

"There's a special place in my heart called 'Babyworld' and you're our top employee."

As our six year old demonstrates, it starts early in our family. I am the man! Down with the Man!

Very few die-hard sports fans have let the month of March slip away without filling out brackets for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Even those who know little or nothing about the game have entered the office pool in hopes of adding a little money to their nest egg. They are the ones who usually pick the team with the best looking uniform to win the whole thing. They are also the ones who often walk away with all the money.

Nine years ago I started a little family pool on the NCAA tournament - strictly family members and those married to them. There's no money involved, just family pride. It started as a little goofy thing, and it's relatively easy - you select 14 teams at the beginning of the tournament, with a few seed restrictions on selection, and you get points for wins during the tournament. Each round adds a progressive number of points. I didn't want to get into the "get your picks in before Thursday" every week kind of deal, so this kept it relatively painless to maintain. It's all run through e-mail.

Every year the tournament grows. Partly that's because some of the second cousins are having more kids, and there's no age restriction for playing - we've had a couple of winners that were still in diapers. And a few more cousins join the fray each year as they finally hear of this fun pool for family bragging rights.

A lot of my family is from Indiana, where basketball is nearly religion and everyone in my family feels it is part of the family heritage. So, there's a lot of interest in scoring. I send the entire family scores out at the end of every day of play, because otherwise I get emails asking about it. I see family members ribbing each other about their scores (and I get ribbed a lot - nine years and I haven't won yet). The entire process becomes a slow motion mini-family reunion, where my cousin in Colorado is talking about the picks of my cousin in North Carolina who's laughing about my brother in California's score. And I get emails from relatives that I haven't seen in quite a while, saying how much they enjoy the family NCAA tournament.

It was a whim and now it's a family tradition. It builds family chatter through email, which is a good thing when family is spread out by geography and time.

And it's a lot of luck, which explains why one of my brothers has won three times and I haven't won yet.